The Eternity Project

by Dean Crawford

  The figure cut left and vanished into the shadowy trees. Ethan cursed mentally as he immediately dodged left on an intercept course where he thought the figure might be, then vaulted over a fence and into the trees.

  Lopez hurdled the same fence further down and vanished into the darkness as Ethan slowed and tried to get control of his breathing. He glanced up at the sky above, now a flawless dark blue beyond the blackened morass of the trees. Winter had not yet robbed the branches of all their leaves, making the small park an ideal shelter in the fading light.

  Ethan paused for a moment. He could hear the traffic and the pedestrians on the crammed roads and sidewalk, could see streetlights winking beyond the trees, but he could hear no sound of running. Smart move. He knew that the figure could simply change direction unobserved to re-join the crowds and escape.

  Crouched slightly as he was, and searching desperately for some sign of their quarry, Ethan turned and saw Lopez silhouetted against the glow of the streetlights and traffic nearby. Ethan knew that their quarry had not yet escaped – not enough time to make it across to the main street opposite, Broadway.

  Ethan moved parallel to Lopez through the darkness, trying to sweep through the trees and prevent the figure from doubling back on them. A parking lot ahead on the edge of the park led to a smaller park beyond, and he knew that if the figure got that far, they’d never catch him.

  Ethan looked across at Lopez, his vision improving in the darkness as he began to pick out foliage and individual paths through the trees. Lopez was covering the area between himself and Broadway as Ethan focused on the trees between himself and the center of the park ahead, where a large fountain stood, the sound of trickling water just audible over the traffic.

  Ethan looked up as he rounded a large tree.

  Something dashed out in front of him and, as he opened his mouth to warn Lopez, a blinding flare of light blazed into his eyes as a camera flashed. In an instant, the world turned black as he threw one hand up to protect his eyes and reached out for the figure in front of him.

  An iron-hard forearm smashed his hand aside and a heavy knee plowed into the side of Ethan’s thigh as the figure rushed past him. He staggered sideways, blinded and off-balance as Lopez crashed through the trees toward him.

  ‘Where’d he go?’ she yelled.

  Ethan pointed frantically behind him, toward the noise from Broadway, his eyes filled with sparkling blobs and whorls of color. He blinked as he heard Lopez run away from him, into the trees, and blindly fumbled after her, but he already knew that it was too late. The flare from the camera’s flash had totally ruined his night vision. He stumbled his way to the edge of the park alongside the fountain and looked left and right, but both the mysterious figure and Lopez had vanished.

  It was several minutes before Lopez jogged back to him and shook her head.

  ‘Not a chance,’ she said. ‘He made the crowds before I could get anywhere near. He’s long gone.’

  Ethan shook his head in frustration. ‘Who the hell is that guy?’

  ‘Judging by the camera, they’re press,’ Lopez said. ‘Although, I don’t ever remember chasing anybody that fast from the media. They were running like their ass was on fire.’

  Ethan nodded. Even encumbered by the heavy jacket and the camera, he’d given both Lopez and himself the slip.

  ‘Don’t know what the big interest in us is,’ Ethan said, ‘but I don’t like it. CIA could have hired private investigators to look around for us.’

  Lopez didn’t look convinced. ‘Doesn’t make sense, they’ve got offices here in the city. They wouldn’t outsource something as important as this.’

  ‘As important as us?’ Ethan grinned. ‘Now you’re putting us on a pedestal.’

  ‘Just sayin’,’ Lopez replied. ‘They’ve got their pants all twisted about us but I’d have thought they’d keep everything under wraps.’

  Ethan turned as Donovan approached them, Neville Jackson alongside. Both of them looked as though they’d jogged across to the park, their breathing ragged.

  ‘You want to tell us what that was all about?’ Donovan asked.

  ‘Bail-runner,’ Lopez replied before Ethan could even formulate a response, ‘recognized him and decided to give chase.’

  Donovan eyed Lopez suspiciously. ‘You recognized a bail-runner from thirty yards across the street in a hooded top with a camera stuck to their face?’

  ‘It was the clothes,’ Ethan replied for Lopez, ‘the boots and the posture. Couldn’t be sure, though, so we moved in for a closer look. Once they bolted, we gave chase. We could do with seeing any traffic camera footage there might be from outside the courthouse, maybe try to identify them.’

  Donovan watched them both for a long moment. Ethan could almost see the chief’s mind working things over before he spoke again.

  ‘Best you give up the name of this supposed bail-runner,’ he said finally. ‘They’ve come a long way to be here from Illinois, but I’m sure Chicago’s finest would love us to pick them up and ship them back to Cook County.’

  Lopez snorted a laugh.

  ‘Sure, and give up two thousand bucks? No way, skipper, that dude belongs to us.’

  ‘Then there’s nothing I can do for you,’ Donovan replied. ‘If you don’t play ball, then why should I?’

  ‘What’s up?’ Lopez murmured. ‘Don’t want two bondsmen busting perps on your turf ?’

  Donovan’s jaw hardened slightly. ‘The DIA might want you two hanging around, but I don’t like outside influences, especially bail bondsmen looking to make a quick buck out of our work. You’re here to assist with this investigation, not chase two-bit bail-jumpers, understood?’

  Ethan leveled Donovan with a dispassionate gaze.

  ‘That individual was present at the crime scene at Hell Gate. They may know something, maybe even have evidence.’

  ‘A long shot,’ Donovan insisted, then glanced across the park. ‘I don’t know what you two are really up to, but I’d hate to have to arrest you both for obstructing police business, if you see what I mean?’

  Ethan chuckled bitterly but did not dignify Donovan with a response.

  Donovan turned silently away and strode across the square with Jackson.

  ‘Who pulled his chain?’ Lopez wondered out loud.

  ‘Who cares?’ Ethan asked. ‘And where the hell is Jarvis? We could have done with the vehicle support.’

  ‘He had business in town, something about arranging a meeting with somebody?’ Lopez replied.

  Ethan turned and started walking. ‘Come on, let’s get back to the apartment. There’s nothing more we can do here.’

  Ethan’s cellphone trilled in his pocket and he answered it, listening for several moments before shutting it off and looking at Lopez.

  ‘Change of plan,’ he said. ‘The medical examiner’s completed the autopsy on the two bodies from the warehouse at Hell Gate.’

  22

  CHIEF MEDICAL EXAMINER’S OFFICE, 1ST AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY

  ‘I hate these places.’

  Ethan led Lopez into the uninvitingly blocky building on the corner of 1st Avenue, and headed for the reception desk. Flanked by two large flags and a mural on the wall reading, SCIENCE SERVING JUSTICE, the foyer had a hushed atmosphere that belied the gruesome goings-on within.

  ‘I’ve seen a few, too, remember?’ Ethan replied to her. ‘Deep breaths, and all that.’

  They were directed into the building to one of several autopsy rooms, where the bodies of people who had died in suspicious circumstances or without clear cause were brought to be dissected and the mystery of their deaths ascertained.

  The medical examiner was a cheerful-looking man in his forties with a bushy moustache and bright twinkling blue eyes that belied the rigours of his job.

  ‘Doctor Michael Freeman,’ he introduced himself, with a vigorous handshake, as Ethan and Lopez walked into his office. ‘You’re here for the Hell Gate bodies, right?’

  ‘Got anything y
ou can tell us about them?’ Ethan asked.

  Freeman chuckled as he nodded. ‘I’ll say.’

  Ethan and Lopez exchanged a glance as they followed Freeman out of his office and through to the autopsy room itself, a windowless and clinical crucible of stainless steel and polished white tiles. Two gurneys stood in the center of the room, each bearing a glossy black bag that obviously contained a body.

  ‘You were the investigating officers on the scene?’ Freeman asked as he closed the door behind them.

  ‘We were,’ Lopez replied. ‘NYPD had the case initially, but it got passed onto us shortly afterward.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ Freeman admitted as he unzipped the two body bags to expose the remains within, ‘because these two are a real mystery.’

  Ethan looked down and saw the two bodies from Hell Gate.

  One, clearly Wesley Hicks, looked like he could almost still be alive but for the enormous blotchy purple bruise that covered his entire chest, stark against his pale skin. Connor Reece, however, was a mess of torn flesh beneath his torso. His legs and pelvis were laid out roughly where they should be, but the hideous damage remained obvious.

  ‘You say you found these two in the warehouse, with nothing but a line of footprints leading to them?’ Freeman asked.

  ‘That’s about the size of it,’ Ethan admitted. ‘Somebody walks into that warehouse, or so it appears, then kills these two and walks out again.’

  Freeman humphed thoughtfully and then shook his head.

  ‘Well, if somebody did this, then all I can say for sure is that they’ve committed the perfect murder.’

  ‘How so?’ Lopez asked him.

  Freeman gestured to the corpses.

  ‘For a start, there is no evidence of power tools, fingerprints or lesions, other than those that are obvious. Both of these victims essentially died instantly from their injuries, but neither shows any indication of blunt-force trauma, use of blades or gunshot wounds.’

  ‘So how did they die?’ Ethan asked. ‘Somebody must have done this.’

  Freeman shook his head. ‘These two guys are in a warehouse, somebody arrives and kills them, then leaves. That’s all you’ve got, right? No forensics?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Lopez confirmed. ‘The site was clean apart from the footprints of the victims in the dust and those of the first officer on the scene.’

  Freeman removed his spectacles and looked at them both.

  ‘I hate to say this, given the scene that you found, but, in my professional opinion, there is absolutely no way that a human being could have killed these two victims.’

  Ethan frowned. ‘They’re dead, aren’t they?’

  Freeman chuckled. ‘Indeed they are, but they didn’t die the way you think that they did.’

  ‘Cut to the chase, Doc,’ Lopez urged him. ‘What happened to them?’

  Freeman popped his glasses back on and gestured to Wesley Hicks.

  ‘This man looks as though he has suffered an enormous blunt-force trauma to the chest, doesn’t he? Something’s slammed into him with enough force to turn his insides to mush.’

  ‘So far, so normal,’ Ethan agreed.

  ‘Except that he has no broken bones,’ Freeman continued, ‘his skin was not damaged or even broken and none of his internal organs were damaged except one.’

  ‘Which one?’ Lopez asked.

  ‘His heart,’ Freeman replied. ‘When I opened his chest to examine him, his heart had been crushed into nothing, a mess of tissue. The bruising you see on his chest isn’t bruising at all in the classical sense: it’s the result of massive internal blood loss. I scooped six pints of it out of his chest cavity.’

  Lopez frowned as she looked down at the man’s remains and the large ‘Y’ incision made by the ME on his chest.

  ‘But he wasn’t cut open,’ she said.

  ‘Exactly,’ Freeman agreed. ‘So how the hell does something crush a man’s heart in his chest without even touching him? There was no evidence of an attack on this man at all, no defense wounds, no cuts or abrasions. All I found was trace residue from gunshots on his right hand and wrist.’

  ‘He fired five shots,’ Ethan confirmed.

  ‘So something was there,’ Freeman pointed out. ‘Surely, he must have been close to his assailant for this kind of injury to have been sustained, so how come he missed with a gun?’

  ‘He fired straight up into the air,’ Lopez said, ‘at the ceiling. It was thirty feet above him.’

  Freeman looked down at the body and shrugged. ‘Okay, well, maybe this guy was an extraordinarily bad shot, but it doesn’t explain how he could have gotten this injury.’

  ‘What about sound?’ Ethan speculated. ‘Could that produce injuries like this? Some kind of directed acoustic wave. That would account for the lack of forensic evidence.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Freeman replied, ‘but it’s hard to explain the lack of damage to the rest of the tissue around the heart. And it certainly doesn’t explain the other guy.’

  Freeman turned to Connor Reece’s body and gestured to the remains. ‘So you found this guy’s body lying next to the other one, but his legs were where?’

  ‘Twenty yards away,’ Lopez replied. ‘Blood splatter indicates he was killed at the same spot, but, for some reason, the killer threw his legs across the warehouse.’

  Freeman shook his head slowly as he stared at the corpse.

  ‘Again, same problem with this guy: no evidence of use of tools, bite marks or anything to indicate how he was killed. He obviously died from massive trauma and blood loss, but I have no idea how it was done.’

  ‘Something must have ripped him apart,’ Ethan said. ‘That must take immense force, right?’

  ‘Tremendous,’ Freeman agreed, ‘but this man was not ripped apart.’

  ‘What?’ Ethan stared at the ME in amazement. ‘He’s in three pieces!’

  Freeman nodded as he looked at Ethan.

  ‘Yes, he is, but it’s not because he was ripped apart. I looked at segments of his body tissue under a microscope and analyzed the tears. This man was forced apart from within.’

  Lopez baulked slightly. ‘You mean like an explosion?’

  Freeman shook his head.

  ‘Like a physical force,’ he replied. ‘That’s what I mean when I say that no human being could have done this. I’ve seen some gruesome slayings in my time but this beats them all. Something took hold of this man, grabbed his insides and then forced them apart with enough energy to rip his legs off. Whatever is responsible, it’s not a man.’

  23

  EAST 120TH STREET, HARLEM

  Jarvis pulled his car into the sidewalk and killed the lights and engine. A shabby chain-link fence ringed an abandoned lot to his right. As was his habit, he always pulled in with the sidewalk to his right. If anybody made for the driver’s door, they would have to step out into the street, providing him with a warning.

  Ahead were the soaring tower blocks of the Wagner buildings, one of the projects in Harlem. Although much improved from previous decades, the area was still impoverished and blighted by drugs peddled by street crews and unemployment. Jarvis kept a sharp eye open for the hoodies who roamed the streets of Harlem like packs of wolves and for young males hovering inside the entrance foyers to the various housing projects, watching for police. A white man sitting alone in a car in East Harlem would be dead in sixty seconds if he was spotted.

  A figure crossed the street some fifty yards behind where Jarvis sat. Tall, dressed in a long black coat buttoned up against the bitter night cold. Jarvis tracked the man as he walked down the sidewalk toward the car, the skin on his face glowing a pale gray in the streetlights. The figure slowed as he approached the vehicle and a gloved hand reached out for the door handle.

  Jarvis made no sudden moves as the door opened and the man climbed in. The door slammed shut and the man looked at Jarvis with gray eyes that matched his short hair. There was no expression or emotion on his face, as though the life had been su
cked out of the man and a computer program put in its place.

  ‘Mr. Jarvis.’

  The man’s voice was flat, monotone.

  ‘Mr. Wilson.’

  ‘What news?’

  Jarvis scanned his rear-view mirror. ‘You’ve been pulled from actively hunting down MK-ULTRA survivors, if you hadn’t already heard.’

  Wilson smiled without warmth. ‘I’ve received contact regarding my new orders. I disagree with them, but it is not my place to oppose them.’

  Jarvis nodded. ‘Why did you pick Harlem?’

  ‘Because it’s the safest place in the city, for me,’ Wilson replied. ‘Law enforcement only come up here if they really have to, and most of the cameras were long ago vandalized by the worthless little thugs who populate these streets. Harlem is an intelligence blind-spot, Doug. I’m surprised you weren’t aware of it.’

  ‘Been out of the loop,’ Jarvis muttered in reply, then looked at Wilson. ‘How’s the chest?’

  It had been six months since Jarvis had last laid eyes on Mr. Wilson, lying as he had been on his back in a parking lot in Maryland, having been shot in the chest by Ethan Warner’s sister, Natalie. At the time, Wilson had been holding a gun to one innocent man’s head while simultaneously trying to shoot Jarvis. Only Natalie Warner’s courage in the face of fear had saved Jarvis’s life. A wisely donned Kevlar vest had saved Wilson’s, reducing the bullet’s impact to heavy bruising and lesions, and the agent had managed to flee the scene before law enforcement had arrived. Jarvis did not mention that the blood sample he possessed belonged to Wilson, a critical link with the CIA’s involvement in at least one attempted homicide of a US citizen.

  ‘It’s fine, thanks for asking,’ Wilson replied. ‘And the only reason you’ll be able to tell your grandkids about it is because of this new deal you’ve struck. If not for that, Doug, I can tell you without a shadow of doubt that right now your heart would have stopped beating and you’d be lying here with your pockets being turned over by the natives.’